During our experiments, I electrocuted myself twice, turned myself blue once (don't ask, it was an experiment), and froze myself three times, just to give you an example. That, unfortunately, didn't begin to cover the extent of the mishaps though. Oh, and Taryk? He got frozen once, and I managed to turn him blue for a brief second, before he was able to counter with his own magic.
All in all, I considered it reasonably successful, seeing as how I couldn't do any of it the day before. But I still had a very long way to go.
We decided to attempt to share more information by making a physical connection, in hopes that he could transport even more of his knowledge to me. In spite of the fact that we knew there would be skills that I would have to learn the old-fashioned way, whatever we could do to expedite the process seemed a welcome gift in our minds.
We sat cross legged in the middle of the room with our knees practically touching. Since neither of us could be sure what was going to happen, if anything, we had planned to keep it simple. Join hands, close eyes, and reach out mentally to each other.
We both believed the bond would allow us to connect more fully than we would have otherwise been able to. He smiled at me, always encouraging me, and I smiled back. Thinking again that I was thankful to have him and his unwavering support. I was ready.
I closed my eyes and waited. For the first few seconds nothing happened, so I increased my effort. I reached out with my mind, actively seeking the information I had hoped to gather. It worked better than I had expected, and I ended up with way more data than I had bargained for.
Almost effortlessly, I pulled memories from him, unfortunately those were not just magic related. I saw his life as a series of images, rapidly flickering through my mind. Some of his most private moments became burned into my brain. The worst part was that I couldn’t seem to stop it. He finally managed to yank his hands from mine by using some part of his magic, scuttling backward from me like a crab.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry!” I cried the words at him as he continued to back away from me. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know that would happen! I’m sorry!”
“I think that’s enough for today,” he said quietly. He stood and walked away from me, down the hall to the study, without another word.
My mother found me sitting in the same place he left me, still crying, some time later, and I was a mess. Between the tears and the snot, my sweatshirt sleeves had long since crusted over. I knew my hair must be a mess, and my eyes were so swollen it hurt to open them.
When she asked me what had happened it only made me cry harder. She did the only thing she could at that point, wrapped her arms around me, and held me while I cried. After I had cried myself out, and gotten back some of my self-control, I explained to her what I had done.
Telling the story only made me cry again, though. Through hiccupping sobs, I explained to her what our intentions had been, and what we had actually wound up with. Of course, I didn’t repeat any of the things I had seen to her. That would have just made the situation worse. The best I could do for him at this point would be to keep his secrets to myself. I’d have given them back to him in a heartbeat if that presented itself as an option.
If it hadn’t been for my growling stomach, I probably would have hidden in there all night. As it ended up, though, I had to get some food into me. My mom refused to play waitress, however, and was kind enough to point out that I couldn’t avoid him forever, that we would get through this.
The violation of his privacy was a big deal, however, and I would have been horrified if the tables had been turned. Maybe they had, for all I knew. Maybe he saw everything there was to see about me, and that explained why he didn’t want anything to do with me. Either way, in my eyes I had done a bad, bad thing, even if it hadn’t been intentional.
Luck happened to be on my side when I finally gathered the courage to leave the study. When I ventured down the hall to the kitchen, I discovered he had gone in to take shower. I grabbed whatever food gave me the quickest meal, and retreated to my room without even speaking to Xavier. My mom could fill him in. I scarfed down my food and climbed into bed, watching the falls out the window.
The sun went down, and I could hear everyone else having dinner, but I wasn’t getting up. At some point, a knock sounded on the door, and I heard it open quietly. Pretending to be asleep, I lay motionless until whoever had come in closed the door with a soft click, and the footsteps retreated to the front of the cabin. Later, I managed to fall asleep for real and dozed briefly.
The screams interrupted what little rest I had been getting. Bloodcurdling yells erupted from somewhere down the dark hallway. I looked around in shock. Where the hell was I, and how had I gotten here?
I spent precious moments deciding whether to run for my life, or head down the hall to try to save whoever was in the inky blackness. Deciding I could never live with myself if I left someone to the torture they were obviously enduring, I crept down the hallway toward the sounds. The farther I got, the darker it became, if that was even possible. I could feel the darkness.
Reaching out, I felt for the wall, hoping it would help to guide me along, and keep me from whatever pitfalls might be along the way.
“Illuminaire.” My whispered attempt to bring light to the situation failed, and not even the slightest glow appeared. I had been able to pull this spell off with ease just a few short hours before, and I began to worry none of my magic would work here, wherever “here” happened to be.
Chilled to the bone by the damp air, I kept moving forward, even though I could no longer hear the screams. The air itself became so thick, I could barely breathe, and it felt like I was dragging my legs through wet, heavy sand that went up to my thighs. The musty smell of the dirt floor hid something else, something I couldn't quite put my finger on.
The wall transitioned from smooth stones to rough wood in an instant. The slight change in the level of the wall caused me to lose my balance, calling attention to how much of my weight I had been leaning against it. Righting myself as quietly as I could, I inspected the new area with my hands.
Confirming it was definitely a doorway, I searched for a handle, finding none. Pushing against it with all my weight didn't budge it even a fraction of an inch. As I pondered what my next steps should be the screams came again. Abandoning the door, I positioned my hand on the smooth stone again, and shuffled forward.
My heart beat so loudly, I was sure anyone within a mile could hear it. My breath came in heaving gasps, and I knew I would suffocate if I stayed here too long. My palms felt gritty from the dust that came off the wall and stuck to the sweat that coated my body like I'd been swimming.
Booming laughter suddenly echoed off the walls of the hallway, reverberating through the stones. I jerked to the side in surprise, knocking my head against the wall. Pain shot through my skull, and my head began to throb. Warm blood trickled down my temple, mixing with the same dirt that covered my palm. I crouched, needing a moment to gather myself, and felt tears of pain mixing with the dust and creating mud.
I shuddered as the laughter faded. The evil that voice carried was like nothing I had ever heard or wanted to again. Using my sleeve to wipe the tears, I stood once more, and headed toward the voice. Whoever was down there desperately needed help.
Suddenly there was no more wall, just empty space. I lurched to the side at the unexpected loss of support and looked around in spite of the fact that the blackness looked the same whether I had my eyes open or closed.
The screams were muffled here, although I still heard them. The laughter rang out again but seemed to be farther away as well. The room flared with light, and I could see nothing but Taryk's face in front of me, bloody and bruised. Just behind him, my mother stood, bound and helpless.
Screaming his name, I reached out to grab him, and my hands met with empty air. “No! Taryk!”
The last thing I heard was a cat's howl of anguish and pain. “Xavier!”
I felt my entire body jer
k, and suddenly I was sitting up in my own bed. My eyes searched the room suspiciously, taking in the familiar space. The water still fell outside the window, and everything seemed to be the same as when I crawled into bed.
I leaned back against the pillow, trying to catch my breath and calm my heartbeat. Struggling to understand what had just happened, I reached up and gingerly felt my temple. My fingers came away red with tacky blood. It had been real, whatever had just happened.
I had dozed off in my bed and been transported to. . .somewhere? The sweat dried on my body as I mulled over what I had seen, unsettled by the things in the vision. They felt so real, and it made me wonder if I was gaining prescience, or if these were warnings of some kind and a one-time thing. I needed to talk to Celeste. Since she had been gifted with prescience as a scribe, perhaps she could give me some insight about whether that was what I experienced.
I couldn't be sure how long I had “slept,” but everything in me demanded I get up and talk to Taryk. I needed to fix things between us even before I attempted to decode the dream. Unsure whether this stemmed from the bond we had formed, or my own sense of foreboding thanks to the dreams, I got up, and prepared to be a big girl about it.
Chapter Fourteen
After spending the short walk down the hallway psyching myself up for a very uncomfortable conversation, I was surprised to find only my mother and Xavier in the study. Glancing toward the hall that led to the training room, I changed direction, assuming he had gone in there.
“He is not here,” my mother said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
I whipped my head around to look at her in shock. Not here? He’d left, just like that? I stared at her, stunned. She had to be kidding, right?
“He left last night. I took him to the portal to return to his realm. He did try to speak to you, but he said you were already asleep when he checked your room.”
Oh, the guilt I felt. Damn my embarrassment to hell and back again. Pretending to be asleep had cost me my chance to tell him how sorry I was. I hadn’t even acknowledged how much I enjoyed having him here, and now he had gone. Cue more tears. I turned abruptly and went back the way I had come. Big ugly sobs were on their way, and I didn’t need an audience for my misery at this moment.
“Everleigh, wait!” The panic in my mom’s voice stopped me in my tracks.
Turning, I looked at her questioningly. Did we have to do this right now?
“What happened to your head? Why are you bleeding?” She rushing over, reaching out to the wound on my temple.
I winced as she made contact, in spite of her gentle touch. The news of Taryk being gone had made me forget the dream for a brief moment, and I suddenly panicked.
“Celeste? Celeste!” I called her name impatiently. Knowing that he was no longer protected in the cabin made me fearful for his safety.
Hoping she was already listening though she hadn't responded, the story of the dream poured out to my mother and Xavier. I recounted every detail I remembered. The smell and the darkness, the tortured screams and the evil laughter.
“I thought it was nothing more than a bad dream until I felt my head, and the blood was still there.”
“I will cross the portals and check in with Taryk, just to be sure,” my mother was already heading for the door. “We will discuss the dream when I get back, because I believe it meant more than just an ordinary nightmare.”
She exited the study and I sank into the chair, looking at Xavier. “What if he has been captured? What if they are torturing him as we speak? This is all my fault. He wouldn't have left if I hadn't pulled all his memories.”
The waterworks started up all over again, and I just let them come. Xavier leaned against me, giving me the comfort he could while trying to convince me that it certainly was not my fault.
“We don't even know that anything has happened to him. It may have been an actual nightmare, not reality. After all, you dreamed of your mother and me as well, and we are here safe and sound.”
“I need to get my mind off things. Want to go to the training room and practice with me?”
I wanted to use the time to experiment with what I would be capable of doing without Taryk by my side. Since I had learned so much of my new magical skills simply by bonding with him, I wasn't sure if I would lose them since he had gone to an entirely different realm without me.
To my surprise, much of what I had gleaned from him remained embedded and I didn't feel like I had lost much so far. What I really needed was to practice the skills, and that's what Xavier and I spent the time doing as we waited for my mother to come back with word of Taryk.
As we stopped to catch our breath, I wondered if I was able to return him to his true form now. My understanding of how the soul threads worked and the roles they played in our magic, had increased to the point that I believed I would have no problem removing them. I could rely heavily on my sight as I would be able to actually see the foreign threads and identify which ones to remove, where my mother had been trying to work at the problem from a different angle when she tried.
I asked if he wanted to give it a try.
He stared at me, at first, as if he wasn’t sure I had asked. I smiled encouragingly and assured him I could do it. When we first discussed it, he had seemed all gung-ho to get it done, and now he hesitated, shaking his head.
“You don’t trust me.” I didn’t blame him, really, but it hurt my feelings just the same. I'm not sure I would have handed my soul over to someone who had just been introduced to all things magic as recently as I had, so I couldn't be mad at him for his reticence.
“No. No! That’s not it. I promise you this has nothing to do with you. It’s just odd. I’ve been trapped in this form for so long now. At first, I wanted nothing more than to get far away from her, and figured I’d worry about changing myself back later. After your mom brought me here, and I worked through the majority of my mental blocks, I remember being shocked that I couldn’t change myself. I wanted my magic back something fierce.
“Now though? I can barely remember what it felt like to be in my other form. It seems like it would be strange to go back.”
I stared at him incredulously. How could he not want to change back? “But… your kingdom. When we defeat the dark mage, they will need their king. They will need you. And I need you.”
After a few long minutes of silence between us, before I found myself apologizing again.
“I’m sorry. It’s not my choice to make. I just assumed that you wanted to change back, without really asking you. If you’d like, I can try just unlocking your magic, so you have access to it like you used to. I'm pretty sure I know how. But, that, too, is up to you.”
He looked at me, eyebrows scrunched together in a very human way, and I could practically see the thoughts running through his head. I couldn’t imagine being in his position. After several endless moments, he nodded. “Yes, please. I’d like to try that. We’ll start there, and then see about the rest. At the very least, I would like to have my magic back to help protect you.”
My cheeks hurt from smiling so hard, touched that his first thought was to protect me. “You’re the only sister I have left,” he responded, “and there is no way I’m going to let anything happen to you.”
Ugh, I had turned into a right crybaby lately. At least, these tears were happy ones. We settled into the middle of the room, much the same as Taryk and I had done. Before there could be any more drama, I reached for him. I put my hands on his shoulders, and touched our foreheads like I when I created our original bond.
Visualizing his soul, I looked for the dark, dull threads, the ones I believed were the work of the dark mage. As I found them, I concentrated on unraveling and removing them, one by one. They had been used to bind his magic, essentially writing over the runes that created it in the first place. It took quite some time, as I was determined to do as thorough a job as possible. In the end, I believed I had gotten them all.
Dropping my hands, and straightening, I
looked at him through exhausted eyes. “Well, how do you feel?”
He stared at me for a minute, and then laughed. Out loud. I could hear him! Wow. That was a change I hadn’t been expecting. I started laughing with him, happy tears running down my cheeks again. He bounded around the room, putting on a display of parlor tricks, even lifting me into the air and twirling me around.
I was laughing hysterically by the time he was finished, in spite of my exhaustion. Setting me down gently, he rejoined me in the center of the room. He leaned into me, and I hugged him in return.
“Thank you.” Still shocked I could hear his voice now, I just grinned.
“For you, my brother, anything.”
Xavier and I spent the rest of our training session joined mentally, much in the same way I had attempted to with Taryk. At first, I hesitated, refusing to take the chance that the same thing would happen. Xavier, however, assured me that he was much stronger than Taryk, and would not allow me to see anything other than what I was meant to see.
I still hesitated, knowing that things existed in his memories I never wanted to have access to. After his reassurances and accepting the knowledge that I also had much more control now, I agreed.
The benefit of his knowledge was indescribable. Xavier had centuries of living behind him and much stored in his head, and he allowed me to access all of it. As promised, his personal memories were sealed away, and I had no trouble avoiding them. Being full Fae, his brain carried almost all the knowledge I needed to master that side of my magic, and it gave me incredible hope.
I couldn’t imagine what he would have been able to teach me had his magic not been locked away from him for so long. The raw magic inside me had been awesome, but coupled with the knowledge of how to actually use it, I felt unstoppable. Nothing would take the place of actual practice, and I knew that putting the knowledge and the doing together would be a learning curve, but I began to have faith that we would be successful.
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